Season 8 Episode 5 Game of Thrones Review
This was the near consequential episode in Game of Thrones history. The penultimate episode of the serial was an extremely tense visual stunner that had an enormous impact on most of the major characters. Several fan favorites are dead. Daenerys went Full Targaryen. Tyrion committed treason. The loyalty of Dany's remaining supporters — including Jon Snowfall — is now in question. The Cleganebowl happened. And Arya decided to cull life over vengeance.
In a way, the episode — titled "The Bells" — felt like a response to the criticisms of the Battle of Winterfell even though information technology was filmed at roughly the same fourth dimension. "Episode iii was too dark." Oh, you recall so? How'south this for some boxing clarity? "The starting time battle was overhyped." Okay, here's a second boxing that was kept totally hole-and-corner. "Not enough major characters died in the first battle." Well, buckle up buddy. (Both episodes, by the way, were directed by "Battle of the Bastards" helmer Miguel Sapochnik).
I take a lot of thoughts about this one, peculiarly about Dany's "Mad Queen" turn and Arya's big decision.
Dragonstone: The episode opens on Varys, which isn't a good sign for him.
On the beach, Varys intercepts Jon Snow as he arrives. Varys urges him to take the crown for himself and Jon, of course, refuses. "Every time a Targaryen is born the gods toss a coin," Varys says. "I still don't know how her money has landed, simply I'k quite certain about yours."
In the castle, Daenerys looks unlike nosotros've ever seen her before. The grieving Mother of Dragon'southward hair and makeup squad apparently went downwards with the remainder of her fleet last week. She'southward visited by Tyrion who informs her that somebody has betrayed her. "Jon Snowfall," she says. In a mode, Dany is correct. If it wasn't for Jon Snow going against her wishes, Tyrion wouldn't have found out nearly his parentage and then Varys wouldn't have started maneuvering to betray her.
Daenerys sees this as Sansa'southward treachery. Then many fans blasted Sansa last week for not keeping Jon'southward secret. But notice what Dany is saying. Couldn't this have been a clever Littlefinger-similar plot rather than a moment of weakness confiding in a friend? Watching that scene, it was tough to tell. Maybe it was a bit of both? Sansa was throwing a bomb into Dany'south inner circle and had to know it would explode.
For Tyrion, this is a tough situation. Tyrion likes Varys, who one time saved his life. Merely Tyrion is also a survivalist. He'southward already on thin ice with Dany and if he doesn't tell his queen near Varys' treachery, then when she finds out he's dead too. Tyrion has fabricated a lot of blunders the concluding couple seasons, merely ratting out Varys isn't one of them.
Afterwards, Grey Worm gets Varys from his room. The Spider taking off his rings actually got me. He's brought to the beach. This is where Melisandre once sacrificed heretics to the Lord of Light so many seasons agone. Now a dissimilar burning is virtually to have identify, merely the night is even so dark and now it's full of fifty-fifty worse terrors. "I hope I'm wrong," Varys tells Tyrion. "Truly I do." But yous can see it in his face — Varys is certain he's correct. Tyrion gives him a kind touch, the terminal he'll always feel, and Varys looks surprised.
Dany executes Varys with a blast from Drogon, who emerges out of the darkness behind her similar a beautiful demon. The mode of execution is rather fitting as castrated Varys' genitals were tossed into a magical burn down when he was a kid, inspiring his lifetime dislike and distrust of sorcery. Now the rest of him is consumed a magic-induced fire as well.
Why, exactly, was Varys executed? Information technology's not made perfectly clear. Simply Varys has been writing letters, possible trying to out Jon Snow as the true heir to various lords. His conversation with his young spy who worked in the kitchen suggested he might have been plotting to poison the queen, who had been refusing to eat. Plus his conversations with Tyrion and Jon treasonous also.
After, Tyrion tries to convince Dany, one last time, to show restraint and not attack the city. We're supposed to be entirely on his side, morally speaking. But the residents of King's Landing are Cersei's responsibility and she can but agree them up as man shields while deliberately provoking a dragon-riding Targaryen to attack for so long earlier she shares some blame too.
Tyrion also brings up Meereen, which is an important reminder of Mad Queen foreshadowing. Think Dany's kickoff instinct when Meereen was nether bombardment by the slave cities in season 6? "I will excruciate the masters," Dany declared. "I will set their fleets afire. I will impale every last i of their soldiers and render their cities to the clay. That'south my programme." Tyrion talked her out of it. At the time nosotros thought, Well, Dany probably didn't actually hateful it. But she did. She's said other things like this too along the way. In season ii, Dany likewise promised, "We volition lay waste to armies and burn down cities to the footing." And in season 6, she asked the Dothraki to pledge to "impale my enemies in their fe suits and tear down their stone houses." Fourth dimension and again, nosotros dismissed such talk equally bluster. It wasn't.
And once again, Tyrion gets Dany to agree dorsum, or seems to. Tyrion says he'll sneak into the city and try to convince his sister to surrender 1 concluding fourth dimension. If successful, he'll band the city's bells signaling for Dany to stop the assail.
Dany then reveals to Tyrion that Jaime Lannister was caught trying to sneak behind enemy lines. She warns Tyrion — just every bit she warned Varys last season — that she will execute him if he betrays her.
So what'southward Tyrion going to practise? Over again, like Varys, he goes for broke. He visits his imprisoned brother and decides to release him, only as Jaime freed Tyrion in flavor iv. Tyrion rightly realizes Cersei is far more probable to mind to Jaime. The two have a very touching and emotional goodbye. "Tens of thousands of innocent lives, 1 not particularly innocent dwarf, seems like a off-white trade," Tyrion says. "If it weren't for you I never would have survived my babyhood. You lot were the only one who didn't care for me like a monster." Tyrion also reveals a secret passage out of the Blood-red Keep for the two to escape.
We're teased here with a happy ending for the Lannister twins: Sailing off to kickoff a new life together somewhere far abroad, just as Grey Worm and Missandei dreamed nearly. Tyrion knows he's never going to see his brother live once again, ane way or the other.
And Tyrion now seems dead either mode. If he marched into the Red Keep to have a chat with Cersei, she'd either kill him or he would take perished in the attack. But by sending Jaime in his identify, Tyrion is committing treason. His all-time selection would have been to practise naught — stay at Dragonstone and keep Jaime locked upwards for his own safety and sit down back and let Dany be Dany. But doing nothing and risking nil is also the selfish movement that Cersei would have done.
King's Landing: At first, Daenerys' attacking King's Landing is super gratifying. She wipes out the Iron Armada, figuring out what fans pointed out last calendar week that, ohhh, you lot can circle behind the ships to nail the scorpions. Euron escapes to safety. She too takes out the scorpions on the castle walls (it would be wiser for Dany to attack at night, only later on the Battle of Winterfell we're happy for the daylight action).
For Daenerys, the battle for Male monarch's Landing is now pretty simple. Once she gets all the scorpions, the urban center is hers. So at present what?
Red Keep: Qyburn gives Cersei the bad news. Cersei is in denial as always. "The Red Keep has never fallen, it will not fall today."
So much of the lead up to the big plow is directed with such gorgeous precision and suspense. Ramin Djawadi nail-biting score ratchets the tension to another level.
We become a collision. Jon Snow, Grey Worm, and Davos with the Unsullied confront the remaining Gilded Visitor troops. Dany on Drogon perched on the city ramparts. Cersei staring out from the Red Continue. Cries from the people to band the bells.
Will Cersei ring the bells? No. She won't. But somebody does anyway. She looks fine near this, peradventure even relieved that the conclusion was taken out of her hands. The Lannister troops throw down their swords to surrender.
So this is over now right? A happy ending? Everybody can alive?
But Dany has other ideas. She'due south loftier on destruction. She doesn't want peace. She'south staring at the Red Keep and looks furious. She could stop all this but … well…she just doesn't want to.
Dany flies into King's Landing and blasts away. Buildings, civilians, everyone. The Mad Queen has arrived. Her house words are "Fire and Blood" and she's delivering both.
Tyrion watches this and realizes: He was incorrect nearly Dany.
Jon Snow watches her and realizes: He was incorrect about Dany too.
We sentry Daenerys and … wait, were we wrong as well?
Did nosotros already think Dany was capable of this? Or were we in deprival nigh her murderous ways? Did nosotros really think somebody who crucified 163 people because she assumed they were all responsible for killing slaves was a good person? Or practise nosotros feel this is an unfair trick; that writers of GoT are pushing a Mad Queen narrative against Dany'due south character?
Retrieve that scene in flavour two in the Firm of the Undying? Dany had a vision of walking through the Red Go along. The ceiling was broken open up and in that location was this white stuff falling into the throne room. Nosotros assumed that was snowfall and that winter had come to the South. In this episode, at long last, Dany really is in King's Landing and the Red Keep actually is being destroyed. But there'south no snow. We run into that white stuff was actually ash, the ash that's now raining across the city. Dany'south the queen of the ashes. So this turn was foreshadowed from the prove'southward very early days.
There were enough of moments in previous seasons to back up Daenerys going Mad Queen. Has the bear witness been a fleck tricky in playing her murderous moments every bit heroic and only recently seemed to want us to really question them? Mayhap. But I wouldn't say GoT has been of a sudden pushing the idea that Dany is bad so much as doing what a good drama does in its last human action — putting its protagonist to the ultimate test of character. And in doing so, the thing that GoT is actually pushing is a contend about Dany'southward morality, bringing that question into the foreground of the show after letting it sit quietly in the groundwork for so long.
We think Daenerys is a adept person because she'southward happily made so many benevolent choices to endeavour and brand the world a better place. Those choices tended to be made when Daenerys was feeling calm and secure. When you take ii armies and three dragons it'southward easy to make up one's mind y'all're going to blackball slavery because you can. But the show has as well pretty consistently shown that when Daenerys gets really-really angry she rather nimbly leaps to "impale them all in the nearly painful way possible" as the all-time solution regardless of whether it's fully justified or non. And she's never been angrier than she is now.
Since flavor 7, Dany's lost ii dragons, her two virtually trusted friends and advisors (Ser Jorah and Missandei), and has gone from ruling a state where she was worshipped to a continent where — as she puts it — nobody loves her. Dany didn't seem like she needed that big of a push to nuke a urban center, and the final season has given her a really hard shove. What she does here is a lot similar Aegon I Targaryen's burning of Harrenhal to conquer Westeros in the first place.
And yet…and yet…it's definitely shocking that Dany opts to simply start nuking civilians when information technology's so articulate she didn't take to. That is rightly shocking. Characters hopefully sometimes do shocking things otherwise they're utterly anticipated and ho-hum. The debate is whether this is an earned "character surprises you" moment or — every bit ane fan grieved on Twitter — "character bump-off."
I suspect the primal is Dany'southward quote earlier about ruling by fear. She doesn't only desire to win, she wants to teach Westeros a lesson later all her struggle. No more than traitors, no more lords refusing the bend the knee joint, no more perceived disrespect — all that's over. If you mess with Dany, this is what happens and now everybody will fall in line. Of class, maybe this wasn't about any kind of logic all. Varys warned most Targaryen predisposition to madness. Peradventure we're meant to believe Dany just finally snapped.
If I'm pushed to criticize, and then I'd say that I wished season 8 had more than episodes to play Dany'southward arc out a bit longer, only I also know the production gave the terminal flavour everything they had given the level of production required to pull off its boxing sequences.
1 thing is sure: All those parents out there who named their kid "Daenerys" are going to super annoyed.
The Hound and Arya: The Hound talks Arya into not entering the Ruby Go on with him. "If you lot come with me, yous'll die," he says. "Cersei'southward expressionless anyway. Exercise you demand to die with her?" Cersei has been on Arya's list of names for then long. But Arya decides she's had enough of death and changes her mind.
I'one thousand disappointed not to get an Arya/Cersei scene because that would accept been amazing. I can't assistance merely imagine a scene where Arya sneaks in and confronts Cersei and and then changes her heed.
Simply Arya killing Cersei like so many have predicted would have been a terrible catastrophe for Cersei, reducing her death to punishment for her season 1 sins and making irrelevant everything that Cersei has washed since then. The "correct" expiry for Cersei, narratively speaking, is that she dies due to having fabricated one terrible leadership decision after some other — which is exactly what happens and Cersei is literally crushed by the collapsing weight of the building that symbolizes her power (non entirely dissimilar the way she blew up her enemies at the end of flavour half dozen).
And also, I dearest this turn for Arya and it actually matters that her choice is fabricated in the same episode as Dany torching the city. Because I've had some of the same concerns about Arya'south homicidal streak as I've had most Dany. Arya, too, has engaged in increasingly indiscriminate killing — wiping out that hall full of Freys because they're function of that grouping, regardless of each private's guilt or innocence. And simply like with Dany, we've cheered Arya'due south murderousness and not questioned it considering she's some other young hero who's gone through hell. Merely killing people has seemed to have less and less meaning to Arya. And every bit that happens, life has less and less meaning besides.
So Arya chooses to allow go of her vengeance — the reverse of Dany. Instead, Arya devotes the residuum of the episode to trying to help others, journeying ash-covered through the streets of King's Landing, a sequence with a notable 9/11 experience. Arya as well calls The Hound "Sandor" for the first fourth dimension, offering him back a bit of his humanity too before the cease.
The Hound, however, feels similar he doesn't have annihilation to live for. He's been waiting to fight his brother always since Gregor held his little blood brother'south face into the burn down when they were kids.
The Hound finds The Mountain. I similar that there'south little hesitation. Every bit soon every bit The Mountain sees him, the giant silently knows and agrees that this is totally happening. Qyburn foolishly tries to stop The Mountain and gets killed. Cersei, in the only moment of levity in this episode, positively slithers past The Hound to leave of the way. Cersei looks like she's at least 40 percent convinced The Hound is going to impale her and really hoping to merely skate on by.
They fight and it's cute. The scene looks like some kind of Renaissance painting come to life. We get to run into The Mountain'south Anakin Skywalker face. There's a moment where we think The Mountain is going to repeat his heart gouging pull a fast one on just The Hound escapes. The Hound stabs The Mountain in the center with a dagger, and that doesn't stop him. The Hound realizes the just way to kill his brother is to sacrifice himself likewise — into the burn. Sandor faces his ii greatest fears, his blood brother and the flames, and pulls them both over the edge. Peace for The Hound at last.
After the CleganeBowl, we get The Dane Bowl — Jaime vs. Euron (both played by Danish actors). Everybody predicted CleganeBowl, simply nobody predicted this fight and it makes and so much sense for both characters.
The fight tests Jaime's left-handed sword fight training and Euron has a blast. Is it weird that I sort of adore Euron Greyjoy? Despite so many terrible qualities, Euron finds then much reckless joy in everything he does and there'due south something appealing about that. He's then thrilled to be in this fight that he cannot really lose.
Euron mortally wounds Jaime with several devastating stabs to the gut. Jaime is still able to end him off.
"I'1000 the man who killed Jaime Lannister," Euron marvels with a smile on his face up. He'due south the but character on the show who's e'er been and then thrilled to perish.
Jaime finds Cersei who is in full panic mode as reality sets in. I can't help just wonder what Tywin Lannister would accept washed differently if he was still in charge. It'south tough to imagine Tywin ever surrendering to a Targaryen queen, still I too tin't picture him letting Rex's Landing get destroyed.
Jaime takes his sister downwardly into the cellars where Tyrion told him there was a secret go out. For a moment, we call back they're going to escape. They find the passage blocked. The giant dragon skull seems to mock Cersei — a living dragon is destroying the metropolis higher up and here is a dead one down beneath, with Cersei almost to join it.
"I don't want to die, I don't want our child to die," Cersei says, her icy composure breaking downward completely for the beginning time in the show. (So, yup, still pregnant — Happy Mother's Day everyone!).
Jaime realizes the cease is near: "Just look at me, there'south only the two of us, we're the only ones who thing." Jaime soothes her past echoing her own words from years ago.
They're staring at each other equally the ceiling collapses, killing them both (yes, they're really dead). They went out of the world as they came into it — together. Every bit I've pointed out before in these recaps, Jaime and Cersei — for all that'south twisted most their relationship — otherwise have had the longest and most traditional romance on the testify. Many thought that Jaime was going to render to kill Cersei. But Jaime has always loved her even if nosotros do not. He's the friend in the toxic relationship who won't listen to reason. And while Jaime fought with the Starks and found some romance with Brienne, zero happened in Winterfell that would brand Jaime suddenly hate Cersei, so why would he take a chance his life just to kill her? The best mode to ensure Cersei'due south decease — if that's what Jaime wanted — would have been to stay with Brienne.
Returning to Cersei in her hour of need was one of those things…we do…for love…
What the show has done here is pay off the long-foreshadowed Mad Rex moment. Years ago the terminal Targaryen king wanted to destroy King's Landing while it was under attack from Tywin Lannister along with Ned Stark, and then Jaime Lannister killed him. We've been reminded of this and so many times that proper storytelling insists Game of Thrones had to somehow revisit that conflict and those decisions. What the showrunners have done is avoid just repeating the past or opting for the nigh obvious paths. All the elements have come back together: An invasion, a Targaryen, The Kingslayer, Tywin's other children, a Stark and the metropolis at take chances of being destroyed by fire. Yet the elements accept been remixed to play out in an entirely new and largely unexpected way.
EW will take iv big interviews about tonight's episode. There's one up right now with Conleth Hill, who plays Varys, and he gives a very aboveboard perspective ("Zilch could console me…") well-nigh what information technology was like to find out his storyline was catastrophe and has some thoughts nearly the testify's treatment of his character.
Nosotros besides have an interview with The Hound actor Rory McCann about the CleganeBowl — this is an actor who, like his character, "isn't much of a talker." And so I was pretty thrilled to get this much insight, and there's a rather touching flake in there from Maisie Williams as well.
Here's this calendar week's podcast on iTunes, Radio.com, Spotify, Stitcher, or stream it below. Darren Franich and I probably disagreed more than we ever had on an epiosde in this one.
Trivia question for HBO Store swag: Which King of Westeros hired Varys? Tweet your answer to @EW with the hashtags #sweepstakes and #EWGOTRECAP
Across-the-Wall
Game of Thrones
HBO's epic fantasy drama based on George R.R. Martin'south novel series A Song of Ice and Fire.
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Source: https://ew.com/recap/game-of-thrones-season-8-episode-5/
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